Jalen Brunson once proposed to his high school sweetheart in a gymnasium in Lincolnshire, Illinois, a quiet, completely unremarkable suburb about 35 miles north of Chicago. On the same court where he had spent four years developing into something exceptional, he knelt down. It wasn’t a coincidental location. The story began in that gym at the Patriots’ home school, Adlai E. Stevenson High School, and Brunson seemed to know it.
Before he scored 45 points to defeat the San Antonio Spurs in the 2026 NBA Finals, Brunson was performing in the IHSA at a level that most Illinois high school athletes could never match. With 2,682 points at the end of his prep career, he was the 19th all-time top scorer in state history. This seems nearly impossible for a 6-foot-2 guard who has never been the most athletic player on the court, according to his own description. In addition to shooting 83% from the free-throw line, his senior averages were 23.3 points, 5.2 assists, and 4.7 rebounds per game. Effective. under control. The same phrases are now used to describe him.
It’s difficult to ignore the similarities between Brunson’s best NBA performances and his standout high school moments: they occurred in games that weren’t always simple victories and when the stakes were at their highest. The most memorable occurred in March 2014 when Brunson, a junior at the time, scored 56 points in a state semifinal defeat to Whitney Young, led by Jahlil Okafor. 56 points. His team lost a game. Without getting much sleep the next night, he returned and helped Stevenson win a third-place match against Edwardsville by scoring eighteen points. In the actual championship game against Normal Community during his senior year, he went a perfect 9-of-9 from the free-throw line and scored 30 points on 9-of-15 shooting. Stevenson prevailed 57–40. It was the first time a Lake County school had ever won a state basketball championship.
It’s also important to comprehend the recruitment story because it touches on Brunson’s typical evaluation. He was ranked by ESPN as the best point guard in the class of 2015 coming out of his junior year, but there was a persistent perception in recruiting circles that the class was thin at the position, suggesting that his ranking was partially due to a weak field. Despite this, he attended Villanova, won two national titles, won national player of the year as a junior, and was selected 33rd overall in the 2018 NBA Draft. underappreciated throughout every change. It developed into a noteworthy pattern.
During those four years, from 2011 to 2015, Stevenson produced a player who had already played high-stakes games against Jabari Parker, Jahlil Okafor, and Jayson Tatum before ever entering a college arena. As a sophomore, he was defeated by Parker’s Simeon squad. As a junior, he set a single-game IHSA playoff scoring record while losing to Okafor’s Whitney Young team. In December of his senior year, he played Tatum’s Chaminade Prep team and lost despite scoring 48 points. Brunson persisted despite three losses and three subsequent lottery picks. Throughout it all, his father Rick, a former NBA guard, was present and shaped the work ethic without, it seems, taking any short cuts.
Jalen Brunson’s high school career is arguably the most predictable period of his basketball career. Before any of it had a sizable audience, the footwork, free-throw shooting, willingness to perform in elimination situations, and stubbornness in the face of opponents who were bigger, longer, and more physically gifted were all present in Lincolnshire, Illinois. The MVP award from the NBA Finals is more recent. The player isn’t.
